Richmond Foreshore Clean-up Saturday 26th November

 Another weekend, another river clean-up for the Environment Trust's merry band of volunteers. This time we were working by Richmond's famous bridge, removing many year's-worth of rubbish. Yet again we were joined by girls from Marymount School and boys from Tower House School. So, next time someone complains about "the youth of today", at least in Richmond our youth are giving up their time to improve the appearance and health of Old Father Thames. Never mind a little bit of mud! Also doing their bit, were the lads from Richmond College, and plenty of local residents, including one of our patrons, Bamber Gascoigne. In addition to the clean-up, the Environment Trust led a history and ecology walk on the Richmond side of the bridge, with participants learning about the workings of the Richmond Half Lock, the Tudor wharf at Richmond Palace and finding out more about the creatures that inhabit the river foreshore. Our visiting archaeologist, Elliott Wragg, of the Thames Discovery Programme, identified a prehistoric hand axe, while Joe Pecorelli, the Environment Trust's resident aquatic ecologist, helped the group to recognise invasive mitten crabs and zebra mussels, amongst many other things.

Thanks must go to the Port of London Authority for providing the yellow metal cages used for removing rubbish, and to the unnamed café under Richmond Bridge, for providing much-needed refreshments to the Trust's volunteers, but in 2013 became very unfriendly by banning our volunteers from using their loo - bah humbug ...

Don't forget, our next outing will be on Saturday 17th December starting at 10:00 am, when we'll be holding a pre-Christmas hedgelaying event at Crane Park Island Nature Reserve. Don't miss it!